This offers the simplest “neutral” colloquial mixture of “design” and “evolution” that I’ve seen in a long time. The site is no longer maintained, but the language persists.
“As a designer it is important to understand where design came from, how it developed, and who shaped its evolution. The more exposure you have to past, current and future design trends, styles and designers, the larger your problem-solving toolkit. The larger your toolkit, the more effective of a designer you can be.” http://www.designishistory.com/this-site/
Here, the term “evolution” as used just meant “history”. The author was not indicating “design theory evolution”, but rather instead the “history of designs” themselves, which have been already instantiated.
The topic “design is history” nevertheless enables an obvious point of contact between “evolution” and “design”. They both have histories that can be studied. Present in the above meaning of “design” are the origin, processes and agent(s) involved in the “designing”. This differs significantly from the Discovery Institute’s version of “design theory”, when it comes to history, aim, structure and agency, since the DI’s version flat out avoids discussion of design processes and agent(s). The primary purpose of the DI’s “design theory”, meanwhile, is USAmerican religious apologetics and “theistic science”.
The quotation above likely didn’t come from an IDist, and it isn’t referencing “Intelligent Design” theory as a supposed “scientific theory”. The “designer” in the quotation above is a (more or less intelligent) human designer, not a Divine Designer. This fact distinguishes it “in principle” from the Discovery Institute’s ID theory, which is supposed to be (depends on who you’re speaking with in the IDM) about first biology, then informatics, and statistics. The DI’s ID theory is not actually focused on “designing by real designers”, but rather on apologetics using “design” and informational probabilism.
The Discovery Institute’s failure to distinguish or even highlight the differences and similarities between human design and Divine Design, and instead their engagement in active distortion, equivocation, double-talking, and obfuscation between them, are marks of its eventual downward trend to collapse.
When you say ‘I think’, what do you mean by ‘I’ ? How did you discover that you had a brain in the first place?
I’ll ask you the same as I asked Alan. When you say ‘I think’, what do you mean by ‘I’ ? How did you discover that you had a brain in the first place?
How do you account for the placebo effect?
It’s all to do with what frame of mind you are in 🙂
Quarks are purely mathematical entities.
It is cellular processes which govern genetic activity. Molecular complexes supplied by the parent begin the processes of cell division and development of the offspring. DNA polymerase, helicase, single stranded binding protein, DNA topoisomerase, primase, and ligase all work together to achieve this development. The order of their construction is indeed contained in the genome but various sequences still need to be selected and manipulated in time and space.
DNA polymerase has the remarkable ability to add bases at one thousand per second and it also removes errors and add correct bases. It does this in conjunction with many other protein complexes.
These are the processes that get passed on from generation to generation.
I don’t deny that genes get passed on. But genes are just one part of the whole organism and it is whole organisms that get passed on. That humans have tens of thousands of genes but hundreds of thousands of different proteins makes obvious the importance of gene manipulation.
Hope your genes enjoyed their holiday 🙂
I assume that there is some point to this question. But I don’t know what that point is.
It’s all to do with what frame of mind you are in
If the term “mental state” had to do with current frame of mind, that would at least make sense. However philosophers say that beliefs are states of mind, even when those are beliefs that they ascribe to me, but which have nothing to do with my current thoughts.
CharlieM,
I think you have the map mixed with the territory. Physicists have produced mathematical models to explain and predict the observed behaviour of fundamental particles.
As far as it exists, perhaps thinking you are going to get better has a positive effect on getting better. Not sure how that relates to diseases such as schizophrenia being physical.
Supplied by the parental genome. Endless recasting in terms you find more congenial does not change that basic fact of biology. You say it, I refute it, you say it again, round and round … I’m happy to play this game because I’m stubborn, and because I’m right! Your recasting it yet again changes no facts of biology. It may be persuasive to you, but you’re trying to persuade someone else, by simple repetition.
You appear to be trying to refute reductionism through obscurantism – by holding your telescope to the wrong eye and deliberately not seeing the information flow, by mashing ‘phenotype’ into a vague whole such that genes become subordinate to it. Because vague-phenotype extracts genetic sequence, and vague-phenotype replicates DNA, and vague-phenotype controls cell division and apoptosis, then it’s all about vague-phenotype. Something that is both a property of a single zygote, and a massed collection of descendants of that zygote. When a cell, that cell ‘manipulates its genome’. When a collection, the whole collection ‘manipulates its genome(s)’.
But in fact, each component is specific-genotype. A separate part of genotype in each case, not a vague composite. The genome is a collective of specialisms; a mini-society (the whole reflected in the parts, hee hee). It multiplies, but ultimately it’s a single (haploid) copy that pops out.
And all of that is also contained in the genome. Which is why the zygote of a particular species ends up replicating into an organism with a roughly consistent form, behaviour, developmental progression, response. That information is not in ‘the cell’; it’s in the genome. Demonstrably.
All specified within the genetic sequence of the enzyme.
Whose sequence and control resides in the genome.
In the genome.
That is incorrect. A whole beaver does not pass on its whole-beaverness; a tiny beaver that grows into a new one. It passes on its genes, plus, for a moment, a handful of gene products generated by the parental genome, before the offspring genome starts generating them directly.
What I write below I do not offer as facts but as me giving my understanding from my personal thoughts and beliefs.
Nothing needs to get broadcast because the group already has the potential to express the archetype which encompasses all of the novelties. Individual circumstances limit this expression.
The concept oft mechanism applies to the physical organisation alone. But there is much more to organisms over and above the physical body. There are higher organisational principles with their own laws. It is a mistake to apply the mechanical laws in which cause precedes effect to these higher principles. The life organisation is rhythmic in character with self-generated movement. Further we have the sentient organisation and the ego organisation with their own specific laws. Similarly, the laws of water are different from and not contained in the laws of hydrogen nor the laws of oxygen. Our egos have their own laws which cannot be arrived at through physics and chemistry.
Thoughts are not physical but they are just as real as physical substance. Thinking is an activity of the ego and it is only in the human that the ego has condensed to the point where it aligns with the physical individual.
Chromosomes are intricate, living, moving, complex molecules consisting of more than strings of nucleotides. What is the chemical composition of these ‘parasitic DNA elements’? I think you’ll find that DNA is only one of the constituents and would be meaningless outwith the complex of which it forms a vital part..
The only time that the DNA molecule is observed to be in isolation is when human researchers separate it out of the living substance. In your mind you see DNA and proteins as separate but they are never seen as such in living systems. Together they have the properties of life, separate them and you end up with dead matter.
Could you explicitly state what those laws are and explain how they describe the relationship between archetype and phenotype? How does the potential for a novel trait become expressed by all the members of a clade, but not outside it? I don’t believe you’ve answered Allan’s original question.
Parasites tend to be meaningless without a host, sure. That is their nature. But it is folly to argue that parasites are part of the host organism. The same goes for parasitic DNA elements: they do not serve the interests of the organism or the chromosome that hosts them.
You ran into this issue before, when we were discussing viruses. You tried to deal with this by pointing out that viruses are harmless without a host, which is like saying that volcanic eruptions are perfectly safe provided that you are at not around to experience its consequences. That is just evasion of the inconvenient fact you were asked to confront. Viruses and other parasitic elements are pathogens that clearly do not exist for our benefit, but have their own agenda.
I think the problem lies in treating genes as agents. Individual organisms are agents, even intra-cellular complexes such as dynein ‘motors’ and chromosomes can be classed as agents. But unless genes are defined as more than just sequences of DNA then they are not productive agents.
Look at the multitude of cell types in multicellular eukaryotes. The DNA remains the same but the way it is arranged is highly variable. The spatial localisation of chromosome territories and how different areas are moved into close proximity with one another affect gene expression. Regulated activity is highly variable depending on cell type. Cells manipulate their DNA in a way reminiscent of how some invertebrates manipulate their silk, .with great precision and purpose.
I’ve done this. Briefly, precipitation with phenol is the method. The strands, still well hydrated, can be gathered on a glass rod. The strands align vertically under the effects of gravity, hydrogen bonding, surface tension into one composite strand with the most fascinating banded optical effect.
You are, perhaps without realising it, (re-)making the distinction between genotype and phenotype. No need to reinvent the wheel.
Really bad analogy!
Sex and reproduction are very interestring areas of study. All animals get the urge to have sex but only humans recognise the consequences of these acts.
Lower animals let Mother Nature supply the womb in which their offspring begin their development, with even fertilisation taking place in the wider environment. For higher animals this becomes a process taking place within the bodies of individuals and even after parturition the offspring is still nourished from the body of the mother. Responsibility for the care and development of offspring has moved increasingly from Mother Nature to the individual mother. Sex in animals is an instinctive affair quite often governed by the seasons and the participants can do very little about changing the course of what follows. On the other hand, for humans, we have been able to separate sex from reproduction and have the power to enjoy sex while preventing the natural consequences.
This is one demonstration of our evolutionary trajectory in the emancipation from nature. We can still be bound by our passions but at least we have gained a little freedom in that we can control their consequences to some extent.
Animals of the same kind show a great uniformity in their sexual behaviour. Humans show a great deal more individuality in this.
I don’t see what is so vague about the system that is a chromosome.
A flute is just a hollow tube to the spider that ventures up it.
Way to miss the point. Sex is evolution’s biggest idea. It’s the halving, swapping and shuffling of genomes allowing and promoting the proliferation of novel genomes that is important. The rest is window dressing.
And the Irish dancers act by means of their legs.
I have no problem with the correlations you highlight. It’s when the correlations become causations that is what I take issue with.
Ye Gods. Your response is repetition again? I’ll say it again with block capitals and italics for emphasis: IT DOESN’T MATTER. It really doesn’t. See #1. Gene centrism is not dependent on the observation of naked DNA. I wrote that on 4th August. It’s now 5th September.
They are separate, even in living systems. Of course they are separate; they’re a completely different class of molecule, with different functions. Nonetheless, every protein sequence is in DNA. Most of them are less than a day old, and must be refreshed from the genome. Every control region is rooted in DNA. All of ’em. You are attempting to refute reductionism by wielding ignorance of detail; raising that to the level of fundamental principle.
Because the modern genome acts through (inter alia) the extensive production of proteins. This is not a sensible objection to gene centrism. As I have also observed before: you think gene centrists don’t know any biology?
Haha. “I don’t see what is so vague about [says something vague]” 😁
Genes clearly have a causal relationship with form. That’s well established; it’s not mere ‘correlation’. This causal relationship does not disappear with the observation that genes must be expressed to have effect (an inevitable corollary of the commonly-used definition of ‘gene’). So, your problem appears to be pretty fundamental: you take issue with the entire science of genetics.
Genetic differences also clearly can have a causal effect on organismal success. So again you seem to have a bit of an issue with the entire science of evolutionary biology.
Other than that, it’s all good, I presume!
Your problem is with a metaphor, then.
You’ll note that these complexities are repeated, over and over, in every organism you choose to examine from a species, to the extent that one can generalise from a few instances. Why is that? What ensures this consistency of expression throughout differentiation and development, across an entire population? It can’t be proteins; they turn over rapidly, in a matter of hours. You could waft vaguely at something undemonstrable, acting by means obscure. Or, you could drop your resistance to the concept and consider the role of genetics.
CharlieM,
I don’t see how a novel genetic instance – say an oak – gets to access its oak ‘archetype’. Haploid pollen and ovule come together to form a diploid cell. It divides; in my conception differential gene expression causes leaf and trunk and acorn to develop from the descendants of this totipotent cell. But you don’t think differential gene expression is enough of an explanation. Something is channelling and constraining the development of the oak, interacting in some way with genetic expression or broader form, if genetic expression is itself insufficient to generate full-on ‘oakiness’. I struggle to conceptualise how this additional force might operate, starting with haploid cells.
No, I do not think that is an issue. In my book, agents are conscious beings capable of acting with intent. Neither proteins, protein complexes, cells, chromosomes nor genes fit the bill.
My assesment is that part of the problem lies in your view of all matter as being passive and inert, ignoring its chemical properties and capacity for self organization. The other issue is your failure to appreciate the central role of heritable variation for evolutionary change.
… and it is too narrow for her to weave her web there.
He said these processes are othogonal to the dogma not in opposition to it and so it does not have to involve reverse translation. Control is from above the level of the gene. Here is a link to his lab ‘site. The opening paragraph includes this:
They are investigating the control of protein conformational changes not governed by the genome. I would say that alternative splicing displays a similar level of control not governed by the genome. Also this videoI have linked to previously is more reminiscent of field dynamics rather than control from point sources within each nucleus. It shows a stage in the process of drosophila embryo formation.
And of course this is just one piece of research from many that Talbott mentions. There is much more there that we could discuss and argue about.
Yes. We humans are beginning to take over responsibility for controlling what at
one time nature had sole control of. We are conscious systems that have some control over genes. They were under the control that natural systems before we gained the power we now hold, and to a great extent natural systems are still in control. In labs genes do not control model organisms: living, thinking, communicating human beings do. Scientists decide the fate of the organisms under study. Scientists are not just collections of genes, they are unified systems.
CharlieM,
So glad to see you reference Eric Wieschaus; he and Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard developed the famous Heidelberg Screen: by surrounding the embryos with screens made of different elements, they were able to prevent the embryos from accessing different specific aspects of the fruit fly archetype.
The bicoid aspect, the Krüppel aspect (one of the gap aspects of the archetype) the pair rule, and the segment polarity archetype.
[finger to earpiece] What do you mean, “not that kind of screen”?
Still no. Not ‘orthogonal’ to it either (such a pretentious word when used in such a way, I find). What does that even mean? If the dogma is not challenged, why mention it?
It’s arguably ‘above the level’ of any given gene (depending on definition), but it is still part of the heritable material – DNA – and not elsewhere. This is still not a valid objection to gene-centrism. Each gene would not have to do everything itself before gene centrism could gain any traction. See #2. I find myself nonplussed even having to type this out – as if gene-centrists ever imagined that each gene acted alone, till Talbott et al came along!
As to the genetic basis of control itself, I went into this in some detail. If you can find an exception to the rule that control ultimately resides in DNA, I’d be interested to hear it. But make sure it really is an exception, and not an artefact of your failure to follow the causal chain.
An important keyword there is ‘clonal’. Care to have a stab as to why I’d say that?
You would be dead wrong. How else does a tissue-specific isoform arise consistently in every member of a species, if not under genetic control?
Again, you’re attaching limpet-like to the work of people you perceive as ‘revolutionaries’ without troubling to learn the basics, or follow the counterargument.
You’d be better learning to walk. You are impressed by apparent paradigm shifts, which you swallow uncritically. But there’s a reason the likes of Talbott are not widely proclaimed as visionaries in biological circles.
Who mentioned humans? Oh, you did. Again. It’s all you care about; the rest of biology is just so much fluff.
I think this is a rather poor justification of the preferential use of the term ‘everything is controlled by the system’ wrt biology. How about pre 1950? Did we only become ‘systems’ when we became aware of DNA? Or was it in the Pleistocene, with primitive domestication?
Thanks for the link. Looks interesting.
I have the same blood group but I’m fairly immune to midge bites. My wife on the other hand…
I find it more convenient to answer posts short sections at a time. If anyone objects to me having too many consecutive posts just let me know and I’ll try to reduce their number.
And which group would you consider to be the most successful in terms of reproduction numbers and biomass, bacteria or multicellular animals? From The biomass distribution on Earth
What would be your justification for saying that we are more successful than bacteria in Darwinian terms?
There are no particles, there are only fields
The time has come for the importance of peripheral forces to be generally accepted. Our obsession with looking for fundamental answers by slicing reality into the ever smaller and separate has revealed, like an infinite line returning back to where it begins, an infinite expanse opening up from the smallest entities.
Or so it should be. But humans will be humans.
No. As long as there is molecular activity within the cytoplasm then it demonstrates life forces. Take a cutting from a plant and it may very well grow into a complete new plant, but chop off one of your fingers and what you will have is dead flesh and bone. Plants retain much more life force than we do.
Allan didn’t say that. He said that there is no ecological competition between us and bacteria, which is absolutely correct. This too has come up before. If you do not work harder at restraining your inner guru this discussion will get very repetitive.
Depends on the life force. Stem cells and neurons have basically the same genomes but the life force is much stronger in stem cells. Nerve cells have had to give up their life forces in order to serve other purposes.
Even without considering minds we can see that there is no such thing as naturally occurring DNA separate from other molecular complexes.
So you disapprove of terms like ‘motor’ proteins because of their association with human designed machines?
So information gets passed on. Information that sits at a level above its physical carrier. DNA carries the information to make a huge variety of polymers. Organisms and cells use these polymers to suit their needs depending on their situation in time and space. One gene may be used in any number of ways and very many genes will be involved in most regulatory and constructive tasks. It’s like an orchestral score which can be arranged in any number of ways.
I don’t see the need to speculate on a precursor system that relies on the chance interactions of lifeless chemicals. As it is my belief that lifeless matter is the product of living matter and not the other way round I have no need of such speculation..
Undefined term detected!
Can CharlieM tell us anything of a life force? Units of measurement?
Not a particularly relevant comparison. We’re here, they’re here … I would note in passing that eukaryotic cells are some 10,000 times the size of prokaryotes, and we have trillions of the things … But yeah, there are loads more apples than oranges. Shrug.
How many DNA-miles in the prokaryote vs eukaryote worlds?
Do I say that? ‘Darwinian terms’ implies some kind of ecological competition for finite resources. We aren’t generally involved in such a contest with them.
That makes your original contention – “matter is condensed energy; early life wasn’t condensed enough to fossilise” – no less hideous a mangling of physics.
And Brexit means Brexit. You’ll need to do better than vague allusion to possibility.
Pure hokum. Lizards’ tails are presumably a halfway house.
Not so. Epigenetics has channelled some cells to a particular setting that is constitutionally irreversible. Other cells remain totipotent.
So we can look at modern life and conclude there was never anything simpler? That is quite the logical fallacy.
No, I’m fine with it. My issue is with the over-extended metaphor.
Organisms and cells are made of these polymers, or by them.
Haha. You’ve been listening to Denis Noble again. The metaphor breaks down pretty rapidly, but anyway gene centrism does not depend on a 1:1 mapping of gene to trait, or product.
God yes, curse that intellectual curiosity! 🤣
RNA world is not strictly about ‘lifeless chemicals’, but simply about a prior state in which both inheritance and catalysis were performed by nucleic acid. Such hypothetical entities were as ‘alive’ as you or I, you protein chauvinist!
Your belief hinges on your dismissing the possibility, leaving it rather self-sustaining and hermetically sealed. “Because I believe life needs protein, I don’t have to consider any scenario in which protein-free life could exist. What there is is all there was … once the Universe had made up its Mind, that is”.
Because integrated living processes which involve genetic manipulation.
Living systems are not machines. A machine can be taken apart and reassembled because it is made of separate parts. Take a living nucleus apart and the result id dead matter.
The Cambrian is the time when many living forms became solid enough to leave fossil evidence. If is seems as though creatures like trilobites appeared from nowhere then it’s possible that their ancestors were too soft bodied to fossilise.
CharlieM,
Nonsense, Charlie.
It all starts with the genome.
Name a level of control which does not root in the genome.
Most of your phenotype consists of the residue of your last few meals. The residue of your last few meals is not ‘manipulating the genome’; it doesn’t have the persistence to form an organising principle; that constancy is provided by the genome, which ensures continuity and repeatability. That the genome does this via intermediates is not a refutation of this centrality.
Like I say, I’m not pushing that metaphor.
Because the genome relies upon its prior products for expression. Remove those products and it’s stuffed.
Remove your blood and you’re dead matter. Does this mean blood is an organising principle?
But I’ll say again: you keep confusing an evolutionary stance with a physiological one.